Wednesday 8/31

We got electric up yesterday around 3:00 and real internet just a few minutes ago. The hurricane experience was pretty frustrating. We live on a peninsula which became an island much of Saturday. I usually get out and drive over to watch the Traumerei during a hurricane, but I couldn't get there Saturday morning due to high water on the roadway and in the afternoon there was simply too much wind and trees flying around for safe travel. Just before dark the wind died down enough for me to hazard the trip over to Bob and Ruth's for a look see. I was expecting a mess, but she was sitting pretty in her slip without a scratch.

Some of the boats anchored out in Broad Creek, outside of Blackbeard Sailing Club, fared fine. Those who anchored near the North Shore or up the creek seemed to do better than those on the South Shore. When the wind backed to Northwest and West, those anchored across the creek from the club had trouble surviving. I think chafe may have been the big enemy, but there were certainly some collisions as well.

At home the biggest challenge was loss of electricity to the refrigerator/freezer. The Traumerei is set up to live off the grid for extended periods. So we fired up the DC refrigeration and emptied the home refrigerator in to the boat unit. We did have a capacity issue with 8 pounds of frozen raw shrimp. So we cooked these up on our deck using two single burner propane camp stoves and put the cooked shrimp in the refrigerator section of the boat unit. We have been serving up shrimp cocktail at every opportunity!

We lost one pine tree and several large branches from the oak trees in the yard. Many of our neighbors have large pine trees through the roof of their homes. I have a couple of large long leaf pine trees which threaten our roof as well. The look fine at the moment, but I am contemplating having them removed. One of these will be missed as it provides some nice shade in the late afternoon.

Last but certainly not least is the threat of a repeat performance in about a week and a half from now. Tropical Storm Katia has the potential to develop into a strong hurricane and follow the same track as Irene arriving here around the 9th or 10th of September. I plan to be in New Jersey and Carol in the Rochester area for that weekend, so we certainly will not be here to enjoy Katia if she comes calling.